


he loiters with a backward smile

by orlesiantitans



Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Depression, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Relationship, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22092124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orlesiantitans/pseuds/orlesiantitans
Summary: In the aftermath of war, Poe struggles with the choices he made.
Relationships: Poe Dameron & Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey
Series: Damerey Daily 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1588942
Comments: 9
Kudos: 87
Collections: Damerey Daily 2020





	he loiters with a backward smile

**Author's Note:**

> Technically pre-relationship, but I didn't want to rush into anything with this one. Warning in that Poe is in a VERY negative headspace, which is why I didn't put in any explicit romantic references - essentially, he has BAD ways of dealing with things, but in this case doesn't do those things. Just takes comfort. 
> 
> Title is from "Consolation" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

In the aftermath of the Battle of Exegol, funerals are had. Poe feels as though he’s going to exhaust himself trying to organize them all – feels as though he’s exhausting himself more with each letter he has to write, with each family member he has to look in the eye while apologizing to them.

_(“I’m sorry-” he says to Karé, and he can’t even finish his sentence before she screams and slaps him clean across the face, she knows him too well, knows what’s coming while the galaxy celebrates its’ newfound freedom)_

He sees it all – children who tug on the ends of shirts. _Where’s mama, where’s papa, where’s grandma and grandpa and auntie and uncle and_

He remembers being like that once. That small, that lost. He understood death when Shara died, but it didn’t lessen the pain of running downstairs a week after her death and remembering when he got down to the kitchen that she wasn’t going to be there any more.

_(“You could have saved them,” a mother sneers, her face streaked with tears)_

Finn offers to take some of the condolence letters, but it feels wrong, somehow. While great, Finn barely knew many of the people that died – Poe, on the other hand, worked with most of them at least once. _Knew_ most of them for years. He’d gone into that battle on blind faith and had lost so much of his force before some of them finally came to save them.

_(“You did all you could,” Finn says, but Poe knows it’s not true – Leia wouldn’t have done it, Leia would have waited until there was some certainty, Leia always knew better)_

He tries to give speeches at each of the funerals. He smiles and talks to people who congratulate him in between, but when he looks in the mirror he knows he looks awful. Skeletal, his eyes hollow, his cheeks gaunt. He comms his father who looks at him with stark concern, and he sees that same look in Finn’s eyes, in Rose’s and Jess’ and even Karé’s. But how can he try and feel any better when he’s hollow inside, when he feels like parts of him are scattered across the galaxy and he can’t find them all.

And then _she_ returns.

Rey disappeared shortly after they celebrated their victory, going off to do whatever Jedi things she wanted, taking BB-8 with her and leaving only a vague promise to be back ‘soon’. When she does, it’s a week until Leia’s memorial service – the one most likely to break Poe more than he already is. When she leaves the Falcon, she’s a blaze of _hope_ , something people around base still need with how slowly rebuilding is going. A Jedi, a legend, the one who killed Emperor Palpatine and helped save them all.

Poe hates how easily she drifts through it all, lauded and praised while all he gets is their ire and upset. He understands it, of course – time dulls the pain, and she wasn’t the one who gave the order to attack. But if they hadn’t attacked, planets would have been destroyed by that fleet, and nobody seems to _care_.

She sees him, and her brow briefly creases, but he turns his back on her and storms into his room, annoyed that it doesn’t give the satisfying slam the one in his teenage bedroom gave, when a fit of hormonal rage took hold and he needed to let it all out.

He’s older now. He supposes he’s meant to be wiser, now, too, but he just feels drained. Empty. He runs his hands through his hair and knows he can’t cry, because crying at this point would be giving in. He’s meant to be this… steady, impenetrable force, and he feels like he’s nothing of the sort.

There’s a knock at that door, and when Poe answers he wishes he hadn’t. Wishes he’d held his breath and sat quietly and pretended he wasn’t in. She’s got her eyebrows raised, and he waits for the snide remark.

Perhaps snarking will make him feel a little better.

Instead, she gestures past him, “May I come in?”

He steps aside and looks at the wall, willing back any emotions that threaten to come to the surface.

“Do I really have a choice?” he mutters. He doesn’t, of course – he was raised to be polite, and leaving a lady standing on the doorstep certainly isn’t polite. She pauses.

“I can leave if you want me to,” she says, and he just shrugs non-committally, closing the door. He’s being an asshole, he knows, but she drives him crazy and he doesn’t know how many more complicated emotions he can deal with at the moment. He sits on the edge of the bed.

She’s looking at him, critical, “You look-”

“Awful. I know.”  
  


“Tired,” she finishes, going to kneel in front of him.

She looks more concerned than confrontational. It’s one of the things that annoys him most about Rey – no matter what, she’s always got that sweet manner about her, where she tries her best to get to the root of the problem and solve it. She’s not a quitter, that’s for certain, and he sometimes wishes he could convince her to give up on something. If she gives up on him… well, that’s just a bonus, isn’t it? Poe’s given up on himself, why shouldn’t she give up on him too?

“Of course I’m kriffing tired. Everyone’s dead, Rey. This war took… it took _everything_ ,” he says, and she reaches for his hand, squeezes it with her own (and her hand is so small in his, he realizes, but it’s also his lifeline at the moment, the only thing keeping him grounded).

“I know it did. But would any of them take comfort in you beating yourself up?”

She means well, he knows, but he snaps, “What does it kriffing _matter_ what they’d want? They’re fucking dead, Rey, and I’m _not_. I’m the one who has to keep living with the fact people died because _I wanted to play the hero_.”

“You’re wrong,” she says, simply. “They died because they knew, and believed – as you did – that the only way to end the war was to stage an outright assault on the Emperor’s fleet. If you hadn’t, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did, what Ben did, because they’d still have killed everyone. And they’d have been able to say that in the darkest hour, the Resistance did nothing. But you went there. You took a chance. People died. But it worked out. The First Order is dead.”

He knows it’s true, on some level. It doesn’t assuage the guilt. He stares down at her for a few minutes, tries desperately to sort out his thoughts, and then he just -

_(The last time Poe cried it was when his mother died – Kes held him, promised him they’d be okay, but they weren’t, they were never the same)_

Rey gets up and she pulls her to him, and he accepts this small comfort. He buries his head into her chest, accepts the small kisses she rains down onto the crown of his head. He clings to her. Part of him wishes he could work out his grief the way he did when he got older – wishes he could just pin her down to the bed and have his wicked way with her. But he’s not functioned like _that_ in a few years, and honestly? The comfort she’s offering him is better (healthier) anyway.

“It’s not okay. But it will get better.”

The certainty in her voice _almost_ makes him believe it.


End file.
